DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — With her passport back in hand, a Norwegian woman at the center of a Dubai rape claim dispute said Monday that officials dropped her 16-month sentence for having sex outside marriage in the latest clash between the city's Islamic-based legal codes and its international branding as a Western-friendly haven.

Dubai authorities hope the pardon of the 24-year-old woman will allow them to sidestep another potentially embarrassing blow to the city's heavily promoted image as a forward-looking model of luxury, excess and cross-cultural understanding.

"I am very, very happy," Marte Deborah Dalelv told The Associated Press after she was cleared by the order of Dubai's ruler. "I am overjoyed."

But the case points to wider issues embedded in the rapid rise of Gulf centers such as Dubai and Qatar's capital of Doha, host for the 2022 World Cup. These cities' cosmopolitan ambitions often find themselves at odds with the tug of traditional views on sex and alcohol.

Both alcohol consumption without a proper license and sex outside marriage are outlawed, but the rules are difficult to enforce and generally only become an issue if authorities are alerted. Most foreign residents and visitors coast through Dubai's tolerant lifestyle. Women in full Islamic coverings shop alongside others in miniskirts, and liquor flows at resorts and restaurants. Yet once authorities determine a legal line has been crossed, it's often difficult and bewildering for the suspects.

Nowhere in the region are the two sides more in potential conflict than Dubai, where the expatriate workforce outnumbers locals 5-to-1 and millions of tourists arrive each year with high-end fun on their minds.

The alleged attacker, identified as a 33-year-old Sudanese man, was charged with the same offenses and received a 13-month sentence. He also cleared by a pardon, according to Dalelv.

And we are told here that as non muslim you don't come under shariah law. Savages! And even if she's muslim... Rape in not allowed. Savages! And dubai is not modest. That makes them hypocries! How is all that gold and flashy city modest while ppl starve? SAVAGE HYPOCRITES!!! I am born agian Christian and ex muslim